✠ Psalmody: Malachi 3:1;1 Chronicles 29:12;Psalm 72:1;Isaiah 60:6b, 1;St. Matthew 2:2;Psalm 72:10–11;St. Matthew 2:2
✠ Lection: Isaiah 60:1-6;Ephesians 3:2b-12;St. Matthew 2:1-12
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the midst of an ever-increasingly tumultuous world, when you come to church, you may be tempted to feel like you’re avoiding what’s going on around you by living in a bubble, by burying your head in the sand of religion, by being here this morning, in a place that is intentionally different than the ways of the world. Yet, you do no wrong to seek Christ’s ‘bubble’ where He grants wisdom, strength, and relief from His Word; gifts of reprieve from the constant tide of worldly opinion, instigation, drivel, and claim of utmost urgency and importance. All seek to replace God if they could, so coming to bask in and to receive the grace and mercy of Almighty God isn’t thrusting your head into the sand; it’s cultivating true joy, trust, and hope.
Unfortunately, the Church though has grown to embrace voluntary starvation from how central Church life is to the Christian life. What was once a daily dependence upon gathering together to pray, and even commune, has become a once every seven days gathering at best. Even before the wackiness of five years ago, the default in the American Church had been that an hour or so on Sunday morning belonged to God, and the balance belongs to self. In an amount that can’t be measured, this relegation of God to a dusty corner of our lives has resulted in the consistent decline in a society that is not only idolatrous of self, but is actively embracing and demanding degeneracy at stage four level of spread and overtaking. To a certain degree, we cannot be surprised by what swirls about us in our world. Yet the Lord calls on us never to give up hope, but to reexamine it, to consider where we place it, and where it rightly belongs, for it is never ever misplaced when hope dwells in Him above and in the true Light that lightens.
Such is why on this day, we are intentionally coming together, as is usual for Christians on the Lord’s Day, to remember a significant event in the life of the Child Jesus, and thus an important day in the life of His Church. We rejoice in our Lord’s Epiphany, in His shining forth as the Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of His people Israel. It is why we will continue to gather in the midst of whatever comes, observing the events of the Church Year, and seeking to feed steadily on the holy gifts of Christ by seeing our need to rediscover what has been forgotten. The increase that is coming in this church, or in any church, isn’t one that you should hear as you’d better come to church if you want to be seen as being a good Christian, but as a reminder of where true hope lies. It’s neither in DC nor in Columbus, but is where Christ reigns at His pulpit, font, and altar. By these, you know what your standing before God is and that it cannot get any better, for how can you improve upon the life of Jesus that is credited to you as your very own righteousness? What we have before us as a church until this age ends are opportunities to understand more deeply the treasures that He has heaped upon us, first of all by His Holy Word, then by how our faithful fathers have worked and formed the worship life of the Church, seeking her benefit through such. The source of these treasures, as taught to us in His Holy Word, form what we do in the Church, when we do it, and why we do it.
You need not read far into the Book of Acts at all to discover how foundational the regular coming together for the prayers and the breaking of bread was for the early Church, that is, how regularly the Church went to church. What began to form was the regular remembrance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus every year, for that is the highlight of all of history, and especially of our faith. For the faith of all the Old Testament saints, and the faith of all the saints in the New Testament era depend upon God in the flesh dying upon the cross, resting in the grave, and rising again on the Third Day. Being saved by grace through faith is true for Adam, for Abraham, for Moses, for David, the Wise men, Mary, Peter, Paul, me, you. The early Church began celebrating the Resurrection every year one an exultant, festive Lord’s Day that continued into a joyous season of 50 days, well-prepared then to remember the Feast of Pentecost. Then developed the season of preparation that led up to Easter, what we in English now call Lent, as well as the season that stretched deep into the year after Pentecost, what we now call Trinity. They all centered around Golgotha and the three-day empty tomb that brought salvation to the world, which is why the Epiphany announcement you heard earlier painted the picture for you of how our entire year is formed around the glorious death of the Son of God. The Celebration of the Nativity came later to form the second major holiday, or holy day, Happy Holy-days, of the annual Christian cycle, with it having its own before and after seasons just like Easter, though in shorter forms. Thus, you see the formation of Advent leading up to the 12 days of Christmas and now, today, we begin the afterward slope away from Christmas, the flexible season of Epiphany, already starting to look ahead to the reason that unto us a Son was born. He was born to die that we may live.
Once again, do not fret if all these details just blow right by you, because the good news is that your salvation doesn’t depend upon you remembering the roots of the historic Church Year. Lord willing, we’ll be right back here again next year to refresh our memories, just as the year is designed to do for our edification. Your place is to enjoy what has been handed down to you and to benefit from it as you can in preparation for the eternal life of which Christ has gone to prepare for you. These details are told to you this morning so you can understand more about your church, the Church, and its Christ-centered history. Grasp onto what you are able, as you are able, and we’ll keep pressing forward continuing to do the same each time we gather, for the Lord throughout history has always worked all things to the good of those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose.
It’s hard for us to fathom how He does this, how He gives hope and increases it within us, especially when things grow quite bleak in our eyes. Imagine yourself as a faithful believer living in Judah when the Lord brought judgement upon the wickedness that had become rampant in the land, even among His own people. The Lord used ungodly Nebuchadnezzar to lead the people away into exile in Babylon, among whom were many, many of those who had not turned away from God, yet were caught up by the divine strike against the evil around them. We know by the account of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abnego that the faithful remnant continued to trust in and serve the Lord only, even when facing death. 70 years the people were there until the Lord had mercy and brought them back to the Promised Land.
This Exile plays an important piece in bringing us to the Epiphany that we remember today. Since there were faithful believers who persevered and stayed true by living as if their lives could only exist in God’s bubble, in a land different from them, contrary to their ways, the Word of the Lord was able to take root in the distant East where these believers dwelled almost literally with their head in the sand, but all in good, Godly ways. Then, some five and a half centuries later, those from the East that the Lord had drawn to Himself by the Word that had come to them so long before, understood that the time had come for the arrival of the Newborn King of the Jews, and they journeyed from their land, carrying gifts worthy of the One Whose star led the way.
The faithful remnant who were hauled off to pagan Babylon were sinners, who, while standing against the sin of the world around them, each had sin of their own to deal. Surely some of their hearts doubted if God was with them or if He had given up on them and left them to perish. Their responsibility, like ours, at all times and in all places of this life, is to examine our own hearts and to repent of the sin that we find there, regardless of bubble or sand, regardless of the condition of the world around us. Upstanding Christian citizens aren’t without guilt. We know that we have been absolved, that is forgiven, of our sins because Wise Men are correct about Whom they seek. Those Wise Men from the East came not for a new leader, not a fresh face, not for temporal prosperity, nor for a novel idea to follow, but for the only One worthy of worship and worship Him they did. They fell down and worshiped the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, Who came not only as the glory of God’s people Israel, but to die for the sins of all of Judea, Samaria, the distant lands in the East from which these visitors came, and the distant land and time in which you dwell.
The Wise Men oriented their lives according to a star that the Lord setup for them to follow, not so that they could worship the bright light in the sky, but so that they could know where to worship the Light of the World as He rested in the house in the arms of His mother Mary. It wasn’t until they had finally found Him that they fell down and worshiped Him, showing Him to be that long-awaited, desperately needed Savior, of Jew and Gentile alike, of the whole world. Since Christ has proven to all that He is the One of Whom the Word of Old foretold, the One Who lived without blemish to be our needed Sacrifice, He has now setup this house where you can come in with great joy to fall down and worship Him. Keeping our time, our lives, our movement forward always based on what He has done for us, Who He is to Us, and how He will always be with us, will enable us to keep coming to His House where He comes to us, for it will only ever be in Him that we find true and everlasting refuge and peace, by all of which He will faithfully strengthen and preserve us. Don’t ever think that coming to worship Him while the world burns, or thrives, in its earthliness, is the equivalent of you burying your head in the sand when in actuality, you come here to build your house upon the eternal Rock, that is, Jesus Christ your Lord.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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